


melt your headaches (call it home)

by disarmed



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: (except in my head-canon it does), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Except NOT Force Ghosts, F/M, Finn is secretly a history buff, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Ghost Ben Solo, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Resurrection, That's Not How The Force Works, and Poe is actually good at politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:42:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24126082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disarmed/pseuds/disarmed
Summary: She feels tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. ”I don't know if I can keep doing this,” she admits, and then, “I don't know if I want it to stop.”He doesn’t speak (he never does, she should be used to this by now, her ghost and his habits), but he blinks his dark eyes at her.“If I die, does it end?” The question is hollow, a query more than anything, but she can feel his displeasure. She presses further, intrigued by the idea that she might not be able to hear him, but she can feel him. “Is that how it works?” she demands, unyielding. “Would I meet you where you are?”
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 3
Kudos: 48





	melt your headaches (call it home)

**Author's Note:**

> watch as i take a tentative foray into the star wars fandom, with nothing other than self-indulgence and a lot of wookie-pedia answers. creative license is pushed to the extremes here, folks, you've been warned.

His face in her hands feels as familiar to her as her own; her finger tips, rough and shaking, brush dirt from his pale cheek in a silent gesture of immeasurable fondness. 

He smiles, and it is real. 

Rey feels her own mouth curving in response, a natural reaction, unexplained, happy because _he_ is happy; they are happy together. 

It has been a long time since Rey has felt happiness, and it is here in the bruised and bleeding form of Ben Solo, that it overcomes her in waves. She could laugh, and she does, maybe, or at least it’s a half-formed thing that escapes her throat in a moment of near incredulity. She is rewarded by him doing the same. 

She is happy, and she is _alive_. 

The force courses through her in a different way than before; long has she felt its pull, guiding her path, leading her down roads that would all end here. Whether or not _here_ , Rey wonders, is Exegol or with Ben she does not know, but she is full of the force and is full of _life_ that he has given her, spreading warmth through her limbs and soothing the aches in her bones. She can feel its satisfaction like a physical thing - a feline rubbing its back into her palm, pressing up and around, looking for _more_ \- it curls, low in her stomach where his hand is pressed to her, warm and _safe_. 

Rey hasn’t felt safe in a long time, either. 

She _wants_ it, with a ferociousness she doesn’t recognise in herself. 

Ben is looking at her like she is brighter than any of the stars in the skies around them, eyes dark and wet, shining with promise. 

She feels him move the same time she surges up, lengthening her spine as he curves and tips his head, and his mouth breathes a shaky sigh of relief as their lips touch. His nose presses into her face, their lips are dry and chapped, and there is the tang of blood and sweat and sweet, sweet satisfaction and Rey wants to _devour_ it; devour him. 

For a long, drawn out moment, the force _sings_ as they come together, life blood calling to life blood, promise to promise, a dyad being made whole. Contentment settles between them, a sense of right, and Rey doesn’t think about the future or _after_ or any of the things that may stand in their way, because they’re finally here; fitted to one another the way time has been requesting from before they were them - from when their souls were stardust and atoms spread out across the galaxy. 

When they part, Rey still can’t find words, too busy _seeing_ him, properly, for the first time. 

And then… he stiffens. 

_No_. 

She feels it like tremors in her soul, a stretching and tearing rendering her very being as she falls with him.

His eyes never leave her face. 

She doesn’t break his gaze; she stays with him, to the very end, her eyes locked onto his as his head touches the cold, dirt ground. 

  
  
  
  
  


It burns to leave this place behind, in a way that Rey cannot understand. While no body remains, there is sentiment here, in this horrid planet, in the arena of the long-dead Sith. 

But she is Rey, and she will carry on; she always has. 

So she gathers herself and her sentiment, packs it deep inside with the wounded remnants of the force-bond she had shared with him, and walks out. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


What is left of the Resistance welcomes her back with a cacophony of cheers. The people are drunk on victory, tear-tracked cheeks and smiles so wide Rey can’t help but think _so many teeth_ , as she’s slapped on the back and congratulated, thanked, praised and paraded. 

When Finn finally sees her she thinks her legs might give out. He pushes through the crowd, yelling her name, and Rey _falls_ into him; her fingers digging into the back of his shirt. Poe presses up against her back, warm and reassuring, his arms around them both, and Rey inhales deeply through her nose the smell of sweat and space and leather and thinks, once, she knew this as home. 

But she is betrayed by her body and by her heart, the likes of which yearn for something that now lives only in her memory. 

  
  
  
  
  


The first thing she does is sleep. 

It has been an _age_ since she has slept properly. 

People come.

Finn, and Poe and Chewie; she hears them bring medics who speak in whispers and low voices as if they think she won’t be able to hear them. 

They do not understand the force, how it wraps around her sleeping body and steals their words, shows them to her in her dreamscape as she fights an ancient Sith Lord with a man at her back; his beauty and brutality a wild, blended thing, the hum of their lightsabers cutting through air, the acrid smell of burning flesh permeating their space. ( _A trauma_ , the force brings the words of healers above her - hands lingering on her shoulders, and at her pulse points. _It_ _takes a great toll on the physical and emotional state_. _Her vitals are in the green, although her heart rate is a bit high_.) Rey descends deeper into her mind in a bid for peace as the words drift in and out like waves on a distant shore. 

Somewhere between the sinking dusk of two moons and a new, rising dawn, she rolls over and sees his face, sombre and silent in the small space next to her. She fears blinking, for as soon as she does she knows he will be gone; lost to her in the dreamscapes, and so she stares into the brevity of the mirage until exhaustion shuts her eyes for her and he is lost to her again.

  
  
  
  
  
  


It takes time. 

Everything does. 

The galaxy sits in a limbo; a strange sense of peace and celebration that sweeps from planet to planet, strengthened by the retellings of a camaraderie made up of star fighters and battle cruisers, of peoples and prayers and the greatest coming together the galaxy has seen in an age. The people talk of this battle (the First Order, Hosnian Prime, The Resistance and the devastation of the Starkiller), and the one before it (of the Death Star, of Luke Skywalker, of Alderaan, of the great darkness that was Darth Vader), and the one before that (the Clone Wars, the Jedi Council, the hero of the Old Republic, Anakin Skywalker). 

After a time, a lull, the remaining governments begin to scramble for new seats of power in the senate; in another pocket, someone moves to abolish the senate entirely and remain as factions - the senate has seen it’s glory days, some say, a new era of democracy has begun. New plans of action, scrapped and re-written, new directives, mapped and funded, and they all want Rey’s input. 

  
She’s a war hero, you see. 

She _saved_ the galaxy. 

She is the last Jedi. 

For a long time, she wishes she is anything but. 

“We need you,” presses Poe one afternoon, desperation laced in his plea, when Rey finally wakes and walks like a human again. She blinks at him, long and slow. “Rey,” he pleads, his hand on her wrist, his eyes wide, “I can’t do this without you.” 

“Okay,” she says, her voice hoarse from misuse. She clears her throat, tries again, putting a strength she doesn’t have into the word. “Okay,” she repeats, but her smile doesn’t reach her eyes. 

Poe’s smile is a grateful, tired thing. “We have to go to Coruscant.” 

Rey nods. 

Everyone is moving on. 

It’s time she does, too. 

  
  
  
  


What was once the greatest Capital of the Galaxy is beginning it’s rise once more. The destruction of Hosnian Prime sees the remaining government officials call for office once more, and where better to start anew?

Coruscant is not a planet that Rey is particularly fond of. She isn’t used to the towering skyscrapers and the multitudes of people. The air is thick with exhaust and it sticks in her lungs; but even she can admit that when the sun sinks and the night falls over the horizon, the city-planet sparkles as brightly as the star skies above it. 

The suite they give her, on the upper floors of the Sestra Towers, is clearly for someone of high rank; a senator or a representative of state. There is more living space here than Rey has ever had in her life, and she doesn’t know what to do with it. She moves her few things into the bedroom and spends most of her time there until she is called for political inquests or state meetings; they call on her often, for things both benign and excessive.

She works alongside Poe as he establishes new order among them. He steps up to take the mantle that belonged to the beloved Leia Organa, and Rey supports him in the struggles he faces. There was a time she would have gone to Leia for guidance, listened to the wise woman’s words of advice, been given a mother’s patience, a politician’s plan of action, a queen’s grace. It is a time Rey wishes for, more and more, with each passing day as she finds her place in this political landscape. 

Her reputation as a war-hero lends great weight to anything that she chooses, and for a time; she fears it. 

She doesn’t want to be _wanted_ by any of them; not anymore. 

There was a time she would have traded her soul to have one person want her in this world, for one person to care, and now she has so many clamoring and caterwauling for her she finds herself longing for the solitude of Jakku, of it’s endless sands and silent nights.

  
  
  
  
  


She eats little, the skin beneath her eyes darkening and her cheeks hollowing in a way that is noticeable to those close to her. She is constantly training, constantly meditating, anything that will take her from the intricacies of the political world that she doesn't know how to navigate. She has made a space for herself in the gardens of the parliament building where spend most of their days, among trees and dirt and rock that have been carefully cultivated to resemble freedom. 

The few people that used to visit this place avoid it now (force sensitive or not, there is an air of stoic mistrust and dislike that the Jedi-woman emits, even when she floats five feet above the ground and her eyes are closed, body as still as the rocks planted around her), and Rey takes a strange sort of solace in the solitude. 

Sometimes, depending on the journey her mind has taken her on, she sees the flicker of a man dressed in black in her peripheral vision. It's always when she withdraws from her meditative state, but no matter how fast she tries to look she cannot catch him. 

When she reaches out with the force it responds like an aged thing, slow to grasp and hard to wield. 

Even then, she finds nothing. 

She realises, more and more each time, that she is alone.

  
  
  
  
  


The first food that Finn brings is meiloorun fruit, fresh and thick and bursting with flavor. (A memory, a long time ago, in the Millenium Falcon, the three of them bickering and biting as Finn coughs on his fruit and Poe slaps his back teasingly, Rey breathless with laughter as she clutches at her sides.) Now, the two of them sit together on the ground and Finn takes large bites, juices dripping down the corner of his mouth, but there is no laughter. Rey nibbles the skin of the fruit - it’s sweetness of which she was once so fond of - tasting bitter on her tongue. 

The next time he brings her wicket crackers and jawa juice, and though she is sweating from exertion - she’s been training in different battle styles, the ones she never got to finish with Luke - the juice does little to quench her thirst. 

She is tired, again, both physically and mentally, from the paces that the _Niman_ fighting style has put her through, so dissimilar to her usual Soresu base. 

“What was that?” asks Finn as they chew. 

Rey pushes her hair from her face. “What was what?” she asks, licking the salt from the cracker off her upper lip. 

Finn gestures at her feet. “Some fancy footwork with that sabre.” His expression is guarded. “You don’t normally fight with that form?” He hesitates, searching for the words. “It’s more aggressive? Almost looks like Ky-” 

“I’m trying something new.” It is final and leaves no room for argument. A secret bitterness inside asks _what do you know of the Jedi forms?_

But Finn just nods, taking her reply at face value, because he is the best of friends and respects her so deeply that she instantly feels bad for her own thoughts. She eats another cracker, even though it tastes like dust in her mouth, just to see him smile. 

He brings her deep fried nuna legs, (and oh, how her mouth would _water_ on any other day for this, her guilty, guilty pleasure of fat and meat) hot and crispy on a cold afternoon, but even the smell of her favorite comfort food does little to sate her desire. They sit, opposite each other, as they have come to do, the plate of legs between them. They don’t talk a lot, not when he brings her food. It’s a companionable silence, one he recognises that she needs, even if he can’t figure out the why. 

She knows she is lucky to have him, to have Poe, all of them really; her constants in this ever-changing world. Mouth full of nuna legs, Rey wonders if in another life, Ben had friends. 

A shadow in the corner of her eye makes her jerk. Meat spills from her mouth as she chokes from the shock of familiarity - black hair, pale skin - and she launches herself to her feet, hand on the hilt of her lightsaber. Finn is at her side, legs spread in a fighting stance, blaster at the ready. 

“What is it?” demands Finn, eyes darting around. 

Rey does not know. 

She knows what she thinks she saw, but she dare not say it aloud. She twirls on her heel, reaching out tentatively with the force to search the surrounding area. 

This time it responds favorably to her, it's interest is as piqued as her own, wanting to find _something_. It searches every crevice and corner, but it returns to her empty.

“Nothing,” she says, finally, in a voice too close to defeat. 

The way Finn is looking at her is too much to bear, and she walks away. 

  
  
  
  
  


Everything is a political nuance, tours of parliaments and niceties exchanged by people she won’t remember, but who will remember her. She is taught histories she has never known by aged politicians; her expression an artful feint of interest at most times. 

The people of Coruscant are extremely proud of their city-planet, and so strong is their desire to show off their home world, they appoint to Rey a local guide, a Bothan by the name of Grihog, born and raised on Coruscant to a historical enthusiast of a mother and a politically inclined father. He is excellent, as far as guides go, touring Rey and sometimes Finn or Poe around the city and reeling off facts and tales of his home world with practiced ease. 

On their walk through the Museum of Galactic Cultures, Grihog shows them a hall of holo-busts. Rey doesn’t need him to explain that these are all Jedi of the Old Republic. She walks ahead of Grihog and Poe, the force twitching and curious within her as she looks over each face. 

She stops on the final holo of a young man with hair in waves to his shoulders. His brow looks furrowed and his robes are dark. 

She reads the plaque; Anakin Skywalker.

_If you live long enough, you see the same eyes in different people._

Poe’s hand on her elbow tugs her along, but Rey doesn’t move, staring into the holo with a hungry sense of familiarity. 

  
  
  
  


Finn, as it turns out, is _incredibly_ interested in history. He picks at Grihog’s brain with a fervent nature that makes her guide preen, all too eager to answer someone’s questions. Rey, for the most past, lets her feet do the walking as she turns her mind away from the conversations at hand. (“Your knowledge of Coruscant is impressive, Master Finn,” remarks Grihog with enthusiasm, when Finn points out that at its core, Coruscant is home to two large ice poles and thermostatic temperature that doesn’t usually equate to comfortable living. The Bothan can’t hide his excitement at someone’s interjection on his tour. “Quite right you are,” muses Grihog. “A series of orbital mirrors were set up that reflected the sun’s warmth and light. Several of these mirrors would be destroyed in the Battle of Coruscant during the Clone Wars, although it is unknown whether this had any lasting effect. It is known, however, that uncharacteristic thunderstorms and rain occurred during 19 BBY and 3 ABY respectively, possibly as an effect of the altered sunlight from the remaining mirrors.”)

So commonly this occurs, where Finn and Gruhog are wrapped up in a discussion, that Rey isn’t always up to speed on where it is they are exploring. 

Which is how they take her to what was once the original Jedi temple, now rebuilt, and Rey recoils upon entry, the force cloying and hissing within her. 

_Kinslayer,_ it screams _, murderer, betrayer_. 

“- during that time was home to its major training, bureaucratic and dormitory facilities.” Grihog continues, oblivious to Rey’s expression or the way her heart beats frantically. 

“There was much death here,” she says, finally. Many things happened here, Rey knows, without having knowledge of it prior to this moment. 

“Yes,” says Grihog, and he does not sound entirely surprised. “This was the headquarters of the Jedi Order from the conclusion of the Great Sith War to the Great Jedi Purge; it has been rebuilt many times over the years. Luke Skywalker himself saw the temple rebuilt under the new Order.” Grihog finally stops to look at her, and he falters at her twisted expression and retreats, “my apologies, Madame Jedi -” 

“It’s Rey,” she says sharply, “my name is Rey.” 

Finn lays a hand on her shoulder, a warm, reassuring weight. 

Grihog lowers his head and opens an arm to her away from the temple. “If we may continue, Rey?” 

She nods and they depart; the cries of the dying young echoing behind her in a mockery of goodbye.

  
  
  
  
  


After one particularly strenuous afternoon regarding the Perlemian trade route and how updated food supplies are coming along, Rey all but runs when she is dismissed; eager to be out of the stifling room where eyes linger on her and whispers curl around the walls. 

_The last of her kind_ , someone had whispered as she had exited, and that burns more than she could have ever expected.

She sheds her clothes in the ‘fresher and stands beneath the blistering hot water for so long she is surprised it doesn’t run cold. Many in Coruscant prefer the sonic-showers, but after so many years of water and bathing being a rare blessing, Rey finds herself more than happy to stand beneath the fall of water for as long as she possibly can. She scratches at her skin, nails digging into flesh to _feel_ , something, anything, allowing the streams to burn rivulets into her skin. 

Finally, when her skin is red and the ‘fresher is full of steam, curling up toward the ceiling vents in an effort to escape, she steps out and into a towel. Her movements are slow and heavy as she drags herself over to the counter, hand reaching up to wipe the condensation away from the mirror. 

Ben is standing behind her. 

Rey doesn’t scream, which later she gives herself credit for, but she does whirl quickly, arm lashing out in reflex so anything not bolted to the ground flies in that direction through the air - soaps, dishes, towels, clothes - and then falls to the ground. 

The room is empty. 

Rey drops to the floor, head buried in her knees, clutching her towel tight to her body. 

When she feels hands curl around her shoulders she hardly flinches, trusting in them enough to let herself go, and for the first time since she left Exegol; she cries.

  
  
  
  
  


“I think I’m going crazy.” 

It’s late in the afternoon and Finn and Poe have joined her on her balcony with an expensive bottle of Merenzane Gold. (“A gift,” says Poe, grin doubling as he holds the bottle aloft like a spoil of war, “from our friends at the Outlander bar, in recognition of our decision to grant them a loan to rebuild.”)

“You’re just figuring it out now?” teases Finn. 

Rey rolls her eyes. “Hilarious.” She sombers immediately, and so do Finn and Poe. 

“What is it?” Poe’s voice is quiet, devoid of the laughter he’d had at Finn’s joke moments ago. He leans forward in his chair to see her face. “Come on, Rey, you know you can tell us anything.” 

The words catch in her throat. “I’m seeing -” she exhales, trying not to panic as she realises the gravity of her own admission. “He’s dead,” she chokes out, staring into her glass at the amber fluid, “he’s dead and I shouldn’t be seeing him but I _am_ and I think I’m going crazy.” 

Poe and Finn are silent for a long moment. 

“I see him too,” sometimes, admits Finn. 

  
Rey’s head jerks up so sharply it almost breaks. “You what?” she hisses. Even Poe looks surprised. 

Finn blinks. “Han Solo.” He shrugs, looking a little lost for words at her venomous response. “Leia, sometimes. Others, too. War does that to people, Rey, _death_ and _loss_ does that.” He shakes his head. “It doesn’t happen as often now, but it did for a long time. Sometimes it was just faces of people I knew, sometimes it’s Stormtroopers.” His voice is shaking, the words weight and thick on his tongue, and Rey feels horribly selfish because this isn’t what she meant and he doesn’t _understand_ , but she stands up anyway and wraps her arms around his shoulders, hugging him tightly. 

“It’ll pass,” says Poe, gravely. “Just give it time.” 

  
  
  
  
  


Sometimes she wishes it would stop. That she didn't see him around every corner and in every mirror, in the reflection of her glass or the shine of a holo.

But she desperately does want to see him, and that's the problem. 

Rey finds herself chasing the shadows in the corners of her eyes with no regard for anybody else, whether they be in session at the senate or speaking to members of the public, it doesn’t matter; a glimpse of his face and she'll take off after it without a second thought, the force eagerly edging her own desires, as if it wants this too, just as badly.

  
  
  
  
  


She takes to her gardens and trains with fervor, stepping from Soresu, to Djem So, to Niman, mixing them together in a melee that Luke would chastise her for if he could see her now. She ignites her sabre, feels it crackle to life and sings with release as she swipes through air. Air is not a formidable appointment as her rage builds, and soon the garden itself is wrecked beyond ruin, rocks scorched and trees seared as she stands, panting in the centre of her destruction. 

She lifts her sabre up (Soresu, sure footed, balance) and looks through the plasma blade to see him. 

Time stills. 

The force hums in glorious contentment. 

He looks the same as he did on Exegol, black on black on pale skin, hair around his face in waves. There is no sweat or battle-weary heaviness on his shoulders. Now, he almost looks free. 

Rey inhales sharply. “What do you want?”

He doesn’t answer. 

“Tell me!” she yells, voice breaking as her vision blurs. She dare not blink, she dare not _move_ , for this is the closest they’ve ever come, and for a moment she feels the sanest she’s felt in a long time. Her fingers tighten around the sabre hilt, knuckles whitening at the pressure. “I am being _torn apart_ ,” she says to him, raw and honest, a desperate plea reminiscent of his own from a lifetime ago on a different planet, a different time. 

He frowns. 

“Please,” she implores, “ _please_.” 

But when she turns off the blade, he is gone again. 

  
  
  
  
  


Poe and Finn aren’t surprised when she tells them she’s leaving. (“I’ve got something I have to do,” she says, honestly. “For myself, and for Luke, and Leia.”). They follow her down to the hangar where the Falcon is sitting, ever-patient, her hull gleaming from the care the Coruscanti workers have given her during her time on the planet. 

“I don’t know when I’ll be back,” she admits, when Finn is pressing his lips to her temple, and Poe is breathing deeply into the juncture between her shoulder and neck. 

They stay, pressed together for a long time, and Rey wishes she could tell them how thankful she is, and that she wishes she could be more for them here. She wants to tell them that she loves them, and that she wouldn’t have got through any of this without them; that they are the heroes of the galaxy, not her. She wants to tease Poe about the grey creeping into the hair at his temples, but that the people love him for his valor and his passion - he is the voice they always needed. She wants to tell Finn that she’s so proud of what he’s trying to accomplish with the Stormtrooper program, that he shouldn’t stop fighting for what’s right. 

She doesn’t need to - at least not out loud. When they pull away and she sees the wetness in their eyes and their smiles; they already know. 

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” The roughness in Poe’s voice belies his teasing tone, but it’s as good a parting shot as any as Rey climbs aboard the Falcon.

  
  
  
  
  


She’s three, maybe four, hours into her journey. The Falcon is cruising on auto through hyperspace. She napped not too long ago, a light, fleeting thing, and snacked on some of her rations. 

Now she’s sitting in the cockpit, watching the blur of stars, when she absently looks to the side and spots him sitting next to her. She watches him, silent, and maps the features of his face hungrily, storing them away for later because when will the next time be? This is the clearest she’s ever seen him; she could touch him and she swears it will be corporeal.

She feels tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. ”I don't know if I can keep doing this,” she admits, and then, “I don't know if I want it to stop.” 

He doesn’t speak (he never does, she should be used to this by now, her ghost and his habits), but he blinks his dark eyes at her 

“If I die, does it end?” The question is hollow, a query more than anything, but she can _feel_ his displeasure. She presses further, intrigued by the idea that she might not be able to hear him, but she can feel him. “Is that how it works?” she demands, unyielding. “Would I meet you where you are?”

Her hands linger over the controls of the Falcon, fingers brushing the lever to open the hatch. She’s not strapped in, in hyperspace like this it would be over in a heartbeat; she would hardly have time to feel it. 

There is breath. 

Hot and warm breathing down her neck.

Lips touch the skin by her ear. 

_No, Rey._

She launches herself out of her seat and presses her back up against the side of the ship. Her heart is pumping so fast it almost gives up on itself. She is completely and utterly wrecked and it takes her a long moment to reach with a shaking hand to touch at her neck, as if she might find some physicality, some proof of his lips searing themselves into her skin. 

There is nothing. 

There is nothing and he is gone from the cock-pit, the brown eyes that had burned into hers nothing but memory.

  
  
  
  


She breaches the Outer Rim and then enters Tattoine’s orbit some time later. He hasn’t made an appearance since the last one, but Rey can’t help but feel the weight of someone’s eyes on her, watching silently. After a time it becomes familiar, and she settles, picking at her rations again as she looks at the navigator in front of her. 

Tatooine is sparsely inhabited; she flies low enough to the planet’s surface to eyeball it, determining it is not dissimilar to Jakku. 

She lands the ship some distance from Luke’s childhood home. In the arid desert planes Rey can see how people have lived for centuries in the underground houses, whose earthen casing provides protection against searing summer heat and winter winds. She thinks that this may have worked well on Jakku if sandstorms hadn’t been such a threat. As she wanders, she tries to imagine what Luke’s life would have been like here, working on the moisture farms - a simplicity and naivety to what the future would bring him. 

_Mundane_. 

The voice comes from the air, nothing but a whisper on wind, an overlay of amusement carrying the word to her. Rey snorts and shakes her head. 

“Of course you’d think that,” she mutters into the emptiness. 

There are tombstones, crude and worn but markers of a life none-the-less. Rey visits each one, reads the inscriptions and tries to imagine their faces. She touches her hand to one, _Shmi_ , and sorrow envelops her like a tidal wave, so strong it almost knocks her back a step. Her balance waivers, the shock more surprising than anything, but there is a warm, solid weight at her back that steadies her. She straightens and reaches out to touch the stone again. This time the sorrow lessens, and, as if crawling from the depths of the grave itself, small, tentative tendrils of _love_ blossom beneath her fingertips. 

Rey retreats, her fingers curling into her own palm. 

When she had made this choice, she had wondered if it would feel like an intrusion. However as she walks down the steps into the lower levels of Luke’s former home, it feels anything but.

The force is patient, surrounding her as she kneels and digs a hole in the earth. There is nothing but peace when she lays both Luke and Leia’s lightsabers to rest, and the force sighs a breath of relief as the hole is filled in. 

When she climbs out the suns are setting. 

She is pleased to find, that no matter what planet you’re on, the people are just as nosy.

“Who are you?” the old woman asks, eyeing Rey up and down like she might cause trouble. 

“Rey,” says Rey, simply. 

“Rey who?” 

When Rey glances over her shoulder she isn’t surprised to see the hazy blue of both Luke and Leia.

She smiles. “Skywalker, Rey Skywalker.” 

_Interesting_ , he says, low and amused in her ear, and, for the first time in a long time, Rey laughs. 

  
  
  
  
  


She isn’t sure where she should go next, and all she has now is time, so she spends the night in Tatooine, watching the twin suns set and making a grand meal of ration-loaf. She sleeps early, knees tucked to her chest, back to the wall with the blanket pulled up around her neck. As she sleeps, she flails, arms akimbo, legs kicking the blanket off as she dreams of a snowscape, trees crashing, sabers clashing. She dreams of Starkiller base, and of him, his face free of her scar so early in their journey. 

Inside the falcon, someone picks up the blanket and covers her once more. 

  
  
  
  
  


Rey blinks herself into awareness, a strange sense of confusion over taking her as she realises the ship is _moving_. Sleep slips from her quickly, lending her limbs mobility as she swings her legs out of the bunker. 

She reaches out with the force first, and she almost sits back down again at the sheer shock of what it finds. She swallows, stepping towards the cockpit, and finds herself patting down her hair, mused from her sleep. Absurd, she thinks to herself, because this is all probably, really, just a dream, and then, if it’s not, she’ll blink and then everything will go back to normal because there is absolutely no way -

He’s sitting in the cockpit, leaning back in the chair and looking for all the world like he _belongs_ there. 

Rey blinks. He's still there. Definitely a dream. 

“I know I'm not crazy,” she says, firmly, into the space between them. “But even for you, this one is a bit excessive.” She slides into the seat next to him but doesn’t look at his face. She eyes the interior of the Falcon, thinks that her memory has rendered a version so real because she’s so familiar with the ship. “You know this is _stealing_ ,” she says lightly, leaning over to look at the navi-pad to see what course they're chartering. “Why are we going to Naboo?” She’s never been to Naboo, they’ve never even talked about Naboo, what has Naboo got to do with anything? 

“My grandmother is from there,” he says, matter of factly, as of that’s the end to the discussion, and _Kriff,_ he sounds so real. His voice is low and smooth and always _faintly_ amused, as if everything she does is reason to joke. This is perhaps the most cruel of all visits yet, she thinks. A hyper realistic tease, unobtainable and fleeting, but lingering enough to cause her more grief when she wakes and remembers it. Rey supposes that this is the trajectory she’s been on since the very beginning, every single moment becoming more corporeal than the last. 

“Is she?” Rey remarks, smartly. “I wouldn’t know, we didn’t exactly sit down and _chat_ about these things.” 

She sticks her chin in the air and knows she’s being petulant, but this is her dream, and he can indulge her. 

He does. “You’re right,” he admits, with an incline of his head. 

“Of course I am,” she snaps. Then, when he continues smiling into the distance, she says, “I know what’s happening here.” 

He quirks a brow and turns to look at her. “You do?” A foreign tendril of inquiry probes her mind, and Rey recoils, shocked, and stares at him open mouthed. “Oh…” Ben’s mouth tugs at the corner, his eyebrow rising. “You do.” He nods. “A dream, one of many, I’m sure. Tell me, Rey, do all your dreams of me feel like this?” 

He reaches out and presses a large, warm hand to her knee. 

Rey feels the warmth drain from her body. It feels so real. It feels so real and she thinks that this must be it for her; this will surely be her end. But, if it means she gets to see his face and feel his touch then she will take it, she will take it over and over again because these fleeting, cruel moments are better than the overwhelming emptiness she feels when he isn't here.

“What is this?” she whispers. “Why are you doing this to me?” 

She sees the sadness on his face, the exact moment his humor shifts and he starts to frown, reaching for her. “Rey.” She doesn’t want to hear his voice, not anymore, it’s too much. “Rey,” he repeats, hand at her jaw to make her look at him. “Please,” the word is soft; intimate. “Look at me.” 

She does, even though it _pains_ her to do so. This will all be gone soon; she will wake to the sands of Tatooine and her immeasurable loneliness.

So, she thinks, she will have this. This will be her one selfish act, and what harm will it do to anyone other than her, to touch him and believe, for a moment, that this is real. 

Rey brings her hands up, her fingertips rough and shaking, brushing his pale cheek in a silent gesture of immeasurable fondness. His face in her hands feels as familiar to her as her own. 

The force _sings_. 

He smiles, and it is _real_. 

Rey is no longer thinking coherently, her brain playing catch up with her body as she launches herself across the cockpit and into his lap, hands pawing at his face and through his hair, drinking him in with a thirst she didn’t know existed within her. Ben’s hands are anything but idle, one large palm holding the small of her back, pressing her to him, the other holding her head, fingers curling into her hair. All of her senses are dulled by this awful burning in her chest and pressure behind her eyes. She tells herself she will _not_ cry.

Ben is looking at her like she is brighter than any star, as he had once before, eyes dark and wet, shining with promise. 

“Rey,” he breathes. 

This time there is no blood and no sweat when their lips touch. 

For a long, drawn out moment, the force _sings_ as they come together, life blood calling to life blood, promise to promise, a dyad being made whole.

Ben’s arms tighten, pulling her in, and Rey’s mouth parts in a shaky breath that he takes every advantage of, tongue swiping at her lower lip, a confident entry into her own mouth. He stands, and Rey is drowning in him as he maneuvers them out of the cockpit and presses her up against the cold metal of the Falcon, the heat of his body both alien and familiar. His shirt is soft but worn, there are holes in places - _from Exegol_ \- but Rey doesn’t care, she doesn't care _how_ or _why_ or for anything at all, so taken by the ragged rhythm of his breathing and the rise and fall of his chest against her own.

Rey pulls her mouth away, inhales deeply and drinks him in, all of him, the span of his shoulders and the tautness in his muscles, the way his hips shift to hold her up against the wall, strong and sure. Her body sighs at each point of contact, a longing born of an age that she cannot quell. 

Finally, as they take a brief pause to stare at each other, Rey realises that all her doubts have dissipated over the realism of all of this. Ben must see it, something in her face that gives her away, and he smiles, open mouthed and lopsided. 

Rey feels her own mouth curving in response, a natural reaction, unexplained, happy because _he_ is happy; they are happy together. 

She returns her mouth to his, a hot slide that makes heat curl low in her belly. He has his hands beneath her, long fingers curling around her thighs as he props her up, but as her hands roam over his chest he must decide that it isn’t enough and he shifts her, pinning her with the lean cradle of his hips to keep her in place, freeing his hands so that he can cup her cheek, thumb pressing to the hollow of her throat and down to her collarbone, his large palm resting beneath the swell of her breast.

They break, again, as if they forget the need to breathe when so consumed. Rey swallows thickly, and says, “the bunk.” Ben groans, dropping his head to her shoulder, and Rey instinctively bears down when she feels the sharp rut of his hips pressing up into her. “That way,” she points, over his shoulder, pressing kisses to the side of his face. 

“I know,” he says, amusement creeping back into his voice, and Rey thinks, _oh, right yes, this was his father’s ship_ \- but then he stops her from thinking _anything_ by whirling her around and carrying her bodily toward the bunks.

He lowers her down with a gentleness that could make her heart burst, his eyes never leaving her face. She smiles, kissing him through it, tongue and teeth, and pulls away with something almost like a laugh. 

Ben smiles, and it is real. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> i started this with the intent to have ben solo come back to life, and then halfway through i was like 'nah, actually, this is good, let's keep him as something that's purely in her head.' but i couldn't do that to them, or to myself, because i've wanted a happy (happier?) ending than the one i got in ROS for a long time. this was also a weird blend of movie-canon, all media canon, and my personal head canon and it shows. so bless you for sticking around to the end.


End file.
